Tuesday

I love this recipe. It is one of my go-to
favorites. It’s simple. It’s healthy. It’s really good. It’s Medieval?

Well, according to Preacher Man it is. Every time
I make this he says that he feel like we should be living in a castle with our
knights and ladies in waiting. Then the history major in me feel the need to
inform him that the odds of you being wealthy enough in the Middle Ages (in case you didn’t know “Medieval”
and “Dark Ages” are passé in history circles or at least they were when I was
in college) to eat a meal like this were slim to none. Just for fun, though,
the next time I make it, all I’m going to lay by his plate is a knife and tell
him to dig in Middle Ages style, aka knife and fingers.

Arrange the carrots, celery, potatoes, and onion
around chicken. Feel free to play with vegetables at this step. I’ve used
squash, zucchini, eggplant, and sweet potatoes all cut into pieces (not
sliced). I love them all!

Combine butter, thyme, and rosemary. Drizzle over chicken and vegetables.

Cover and bake 45 minutes longer.

A meal fit for a Medieval King…or a knight…or a
peasant…or a modern day American family.

Sunday

Today’s
Sunday stroll took us to our local Episcopal Church where they have a beautiful
meditation garden. We were working on pages 20 and 21 in The Nature Connection. Our goal was to find nature in action on
this nature walk.

We
definitely saw some interesting things:

Magpie
found this little tiny acorn and while it doesn’t fit our parameters of nature “happening”
she felt that this little guy was still doing some growing. “He’s a baby, Mom.
He’s growing bigger every day.” Well, there you go!

Ants
busy carrying food in and out of their home under this stepping stone.

Oleander
berries

Web
going up the branch of this live oak tree. We’re not sure if the web is made by
an insect or a spider. Preacher Man voted insect.

Wasp
building its nest or feeding young on the inside.

Storm
clouds rolling in for a very long stay. It started raining right after we got
back home and is still raining now at 11:00.

I
tried to get a sequence of this guy changing colors. He jumped off the oleander
bush bright green…

Slowly
started changing to brown as he sat on the wall of the church…

Solid
brown by the time he scampered off on the chain-link fence.

Wishing
I could change clothes at will…it would make getting dressed much easier in the
tree house,

This week I felt like our homeschool was super
animal focused: mythical animals, real animals, and books about animals! But of
course we had a lot of fun and learned a lot as well.

Chipette:

This week besides our usual core subjects of math,
grammar, spelling, and writing, Chipette started working on her mythical creatures
bestiary. Her first entry was about griffins. Here is the information page
telling where griffins are found, their diet, and special powers associated
with them.

On the back she copied the poem The Griffin out of Eric Carle’s book Dragons, Dragons and Other Creatures That
Never Were.

Entry number one is completed.

Chipette colored in her first countries on the
world map that we ordered from Beautiful Feet for their Geography Through
Literature course.

I hesitated on ordering these maps, but I am so
glad that I did. They are a wonderful size and a great thickness. This course
is going to be wonderful! Chipette loves it already.

Since our caterpillar changed into a moth a couple
of weeks ago, we decided to try another animal and watch it change. A wonderful
lady from our church brought over a container full of tadpoles.

Now we just have to see if we can keep them alive
so they turn into frogs. I have no idea how to do this one, so if anyone has
any advice let me know!

Magpie:

This week Magpie made a lighthouse out of
lowercase “l”. We used our ocean stamps so she could stamp the fish out in the
water.

Here is her finished product which she did NOT
want me to take a picture of for some reason.

I love her expression!

We are continuing to work through our Explode the
Code Primer books. Magpie loves workbooks and had amazing fine motor skills
from a very, very young age, but even Explode the Code gets a little writing
intensive for her, so I thought we could use our letter stamps to fill out some
of the workbook pages.

It works great and keeps little hands from getting
too tired. Plus, getting to stamp anything makes it more fun! I found the foam
alphabet stamps in the arts and crafts section of our local Wal-mart.

Magpie also finished up our first literature study
using the book, Bears by Ruth Krauss.
We acted out parts of the book including the jumping in squares.

Finally, Magpie had to place picture cards from
the story in order the way they happened in the story.

She loves learning this way!

Magpie studied the return of the Ark of
the Covenant to Jerusalem this week in Little Hands to Heaven. She made her own
version of the Ark, and she and Monkey carried it back into Jerusalem (the
dining room) via our backyard.

And speaking of Monkey…

Monkey:

He found his sock monkey hat that Aunt Fluffy
bought him last Christmas and of course, he had to “monkey” around in it!

Friday

For Chipette’s kindergarten year, I tried to go
cheap on the “extras”. You know, science, history/social studies, etc. to
really focus on the 3 R’s. One of the items I skimped on was our Bible
curriculum. About two months into the school year, I had the following
conversation with myself.

Me:
Why are you trying to go cheap on the most important subject your children will
ever learn?

Me
2: I don’t know. Because this home schooling stuff can get expensive quickly.

Me:
Is it more important that your children know math or that they know the word of
God?

Me
2: Point taken.

Sometimes I do not like myself. She can get a
little blunt and testy.

So I went with the Bible curriculum I’d been
dreaming about owning one day. And I have never regretted it. The best part is
that it’s not expensive either.

I want to share with all of you my review of Bible
Study Guide for All Ages (BSGFAA).

BSGFAA is set up to cycle through the entire Bible
in four years if you do two lessons a week each year. We do a lesson every day. *****UPDATE***** I went through and put all of the lessons into chronological order so that if you want to study straight through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, you now have that option. My schedule is based on doing one lesson a day based on a four-day a week school schedule. If you do a five-day a week schedule, I suggest using the fifth day as a review of what you learned that week. If you follow this schedule you will study through the entire Bible in three years (based on a 36 week school year) with some free weeks at the end of each year for deeper study of a topic or review of the year. Here is a link to the file: Bible Study Guide for All Ages Chronological Order ******UPDATE********All children are studying the same Bible passage at the same time, but doing different
student worksheets based on their level.

The program takes you through the Bible, but not
chronologically. Rather you will do some Old Testament, then some New Testament
and vice versa showing how the entire Bible is interwoven and points to Jesus.
At first I was worried that this would be confusing to my kids, but they seem
to have no problem with it.

The Lesson

We do the review section from each girl’s
worksheet which asks questions from previous lessons. Usually the questions are
the same, but sometimes they are different.

Chipette:

Magpie:

Next, we do the memory work section which usually
has us working on memorizing books of the Bible, lists from the Bible, and
Bible summary cards or timeline cards.

Now it’s time for the Bible lesson. I read the
Bible chapter or verses that the day’s lesson is from. I use my daughter’s ESV
Bible, but the lesson questions are written using the NIV. Using two different
versions is not usually a problem. As I’m reading Magpie colors the picture on
the front of her worksheet, while Chipette just listens.

Once we’ve finished the Bible reading, we flip the
worksheets over to the comic strip looking section. There are instructions to help
review and cement the story in their heads. I read Magpie’s sheet to her while
Chipette follows the instructions on her own asking for my help if she needs
clarification about what to do. The best
part is that if she gets stuck on an answer the verse citation where the answer
is found is in each frame of the comic strip so she gets the extra practice of
looking up verses!

This is what their finished worksheet pages look
like:

Chipette:

Magpie:

Now we turn the sheets back over and do the Apply
It section. This is my favorite part! You take the Bible story and apply it to
situations in the child’s own life. I do Magpie’s first, then Chipette’s.

Usually the point of the story is the same for both girls, but the scenarios
presented are different which is good for them to understand applying scripture
in many different circumstances. We finish by saying a prayer about what we
learned today.

At this point Magpie can leave the table while
Chipette and I finish her extras on the front page (timeline, maps, lesson
review).

The Setup

I wanted to share some pictures of the actual
materials so you could get an idea of how the program is set up.

Timeline section from Chipette's sheet.

Map section from Chipette's sheet. Map and timeline are not on the same day.

The lesson part of Chipette's sheet.

Coloring page on the front of Magpie's sheet. This ties into the Apply It! Section.

The lesson part of Magpie's worksheet.

The Extras

Just this year, I discovered a new product (new to
me anyway) that the folks at Bible Study Guide sell. They are called Bible Book
Summary Cards and they are AMAZING!!!!

The girls and I are focusing on learning
one card each week of school. What makes these so great is that anybody of any
age would benefit from learning the information on these cards. Plus the cards
are not tied specifically to this Bible study, so if you wanted to use these
cards with your current Bible program they would be extremely useful.

The front of the card is a picture that symbolizes
what the book of the Bible is about.

On the back is a quick synopsis of the book that
explains what the picture is referencing.

At the bottom of the back, under the synopsis, are
review questions to ask your children until they learn all of the information.

We’ve already learned the card for the book of
Genesis and are currently working on the book of Exodus which is pictured
above. I am looking forward to using these cards so much for increasing my own
Bible knowledge.

I think this is the perfect setup for any family
(even non-homeschoolers!) to all study the Bible together. And in case you are
curious there is absolutely no doctrine taught. These are just the Bible
stories so families can add in their own beliefs.

The final analysis this Friday about Bible Study Guide for All Ages is that we are using this program for the long haul. For our
family, this is a perfect 10!

Knowing and loving the Bible is the number one
goal in the tree house,